I like the announcements! I... sometimes forget to make use of the information included in them, but sometimes I remember! It's nice having context for what's going on around the setting, even if it's not totally relevant to what my character happens to be doing that month. It's nice to be able to make throwaway references to things, even if it's just the weather, and know it's something that's true for everyone. Plus, sometimes I wanna make an open log but have no idea what to do for starters and it's nice to be able to just leech off the ideas here. They're also usually stuff that isn't hard to avoid if you've got some plan for the month of your own, so that's useful.